Using a speech analytics system to control whisper audio

ABSTRACT

A speech analytics system monitors speech from a remote party and/or agent to determine when a whisper is to be provided to the agent. A whisper is aural information that may assist the agent at certain opportune times. The whisper may be verbal or non-verbal in nature. A whisper bridge is used that allows the whisper to be heard by the agent, but not by the remote party. In one embodiment, the speech analytics system may cause visual-based agent information to be provided to the computer used by the agent, and monitor the agent&#39;s speech to ascertain if an expected speech response to the whisper was provided by the agent. If not, the speech analytics system may cause the whisper to be provided to the agent, as a form of reminder.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/080,912, entitled “Architecture for Processing Real TimeEvent Notifications From A Speech Analytics System,” filed on Nov. 15,2013, a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/073,083, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,456,083, entitled “Configuring ContactCenter Components for Real Time Speech Analytics,” filed on Nov. 6,2013, and a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/949,467, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,255,833, entitled “Management System forUsing Speech Analytics to Enhance Contact Center Agent Conformance,”filed on Jul. 24, 2013, the contents of all of which are incorporated byreference for all that they teach.

BACKGROUND

Agents in contact centers frequently handle calls addressing a widevariety of subjects and topics for a particular business. Agents areexpected to perform their duties efficiently and effectively, but inpractice, it is challenging for the agent to follow all applicablepolicies, have answers to all the different questions that may be asked,and know how to handle unusual situations. Contact centers may havevarious policies which are to be followed in varying circumstances, butany given agent may not be experienced in handling each type ofsituation or recall the particular policy. The policies may range fromensuring the agent provides an appropriate greeting to the remote partyon the call, to asking whether a customer would take a survey.

Other policies may be specific to the purpose of the call. For example,when soliciting charitable donations, the contact center may have apolicy of the agent confirming that the donor is not a minor (e.g.,under the age of 18). Other call handling actions expected from theagent may be transient in nature. For example, a call center for aretailer may be offering a special promotion for the current week forcustomers purchasing goods above a certain dollar amount. Further, thepromotion or dollar amount may change each week. The agent is expectedto keep abreast of current promotions, but in practice it is easy forthe agent to forget the specific details, requirements, or policies.

Thus, it is not surprising that a contact center agent may forget tocomply with a specific rule or policy. In other situations, the agentmay be complying with the rule or policy, but an opportunity ispresented for providing superior customer service that the agent may notreadily recognize. To assist the agent, various aids may be madeavailable to the agent to remind the agent or identify the opportunityto the agent. Many of these aids, however, do not provide theflexibility for recognizing various situations. For example, a recentlyhired or inexperienced agent may require more indicators or reminders toidentify such opportunities as opposed to an experienced worker.

Further, many of these aids rely on providing solely textual or visualinformation that is displayed to the agent. For example, a pop-up windowproviding internal written policies may be provided to an agent during acall. However, if the agent is not within viewing distance of theirworkstation, is distracted by the conversation with the remote party, oris visually impaired, such aids may not be fully effective in assistingthe agent. In some instances, the agent may be familiar with the policydetails and just needs a high level reminder, as opposed to a detailtext-based explanation of the procedures.

Thus, improved and simplified approaches are needed for providinginformation and reminders to an agent for assisting the agent'sinteraction with the remote party. Further, there is a need for tools toassist the agent that can be utilized by visually impaired agents orwhich do not solely depend on visually-based notifications to the agent.

BRIEF SUMMARY

In general, various embodiments disclosed herein involve the use of aspeech analytics system to control the provision of aural information toassist an agent in various contexts. The aural information assisting theagent may be referred to as a “whisper.” A whisper is audio, which isusually speech that is provided to an agent during a call, but is notheard by the remote party who is on the call. In one embodiment, thespeech analytics system monitors the audio of the call between the agentand the remote party and determines when an opportunity arises to assistthe agent. In one embodiment, the speech analytics system may provide awhisper to the agent, such as a reminder to the agent to perform a taskor engage the remote party on a certain topic. In other embodiments, thespeech analytics system may present agent assistance information in oneform, such as a textual or visually-oriented form, and then if noreaction is detected by the agent, the speech analytics system providesagent assistance information in a different form, such as a whisper. Inanother embodiment, the speech analytics system may bridge on asupervisor onto a whisper conference bridge allowing the supervisor toprovide the whisper audio to the agent.

As is discussed in greater detail below, the subject matter disclosedherein may be implemented as a computer-controlled apparatus, a method,a computing system, or an article of manufacture such as acomputer-readable storage medium. These and various other features willbe apparent from the following Detailed Description and the associateddrawings.

This Summary is provided to exemplify concepts at a high level form thatare further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary isnot intended to identify key or essential features of the claimedsubject matter, nor is it intended that this Summary be used to limitthe scope of the claimed subject matter. Furthermore, the claimedsubject matter is not limited to implementations that address any or alldisadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are notnecessarily drawn to scale.

FIG. 1 illustrates an architecture of one embodiment of a contact centerwherein a speech analytics system is used to control provision of awhisper to an agent during a call involving the agent and a remoteparty.

FIG. 2 illustrates constructs that may be used to build variousembodiments of whisper bridges that may be used in conjunction with theconcepts and technologies disclosed herein.

FIGS. 3-5 illustrate various embodiments of the whisper bridges that maybe used in conjunction with the concepts and technologies disclosedherein.

FIG. 6 illustrates one high level process flow of an embodimentassociated with providing the agent with agent assist information duringa call.

FIGS. 7-9 illustrate process flows of embodiments associated withprocessing event notifications in the speech analytics system.

FIGS. 10A-10B illustrates various embodiments of a whisper conferencebridge that can be used for bridging on a supervisor for providing thewhisper to the agent.

FIG. 11 illustrates an embodiment of a processing device for practicingvarious technologies and concepts disclosed herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Various embodiments for practicing the technologies disclosed herein aredescribed more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, in which some, but not all embodiments of the technologiesdisclosed are shown. Indeed, the embodiments disclosed herein areprovided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legalrequirements and should not be construed as limiting or precluding otherembodiments applying the teachings and concepts disclosed herein. Likenumbers in the drawings refer to like elements throughout.

Additional background information regarding the operation of the contactcenter with respect to a speech analytics system is provided in furtherdetail in the disclosure of the above mentioned patent applications.This background information describes various components that may bepresent in a contact center, how event notifications from the speechanalytics system are generally processed, and how application specificmodules may process event notifications for specific calls to implementspecific capabilities or applications. The description of the overallframework is not repeated herein, but incorporated by reference asdescribed in the aforementioned patent applications to provideadditional information relevant for using a speech analytics system forcontrolling whisper audio to an agent. In various embodiments, thewhisper audio may be provided from an announcement system, atext-to-speech system, a pre-recorded file storage system, or from ahuman. In these various embodiments, the agent will hear the audio, butthe remote party does not.

There are various examples in which an opportunity may arise to assistan agent during a call with a remote party. Such opportunities arereferred to herein as an agent assist opportunity (“AAO”). An AAO mayarise in various contexts and are typically dependent on the context,purpose of the call, or the management guidelines for the agent. Forexample, the contact center may require agents to confirm or inquire ofcertain information of the remote party. For example, in a customerservice context, the agent may inform the caller of a special offer orrequest the caller to participate in a survey after their issue has beenresolved. It is possible that an agent may forget to inform or ask thecaller of this, and thus, there is an opportunity to assist the agent toremind them to perform a certain action.

In another example involving charitable donations, the contact centermay have a policy in which the donor is verified as being an adult incertain situations, as various laws may prohibit soliciting donationsfrom a minor. For example, an individual who is known to be an adult iscontacted, but instead their nephew or child answers the phone and it isunknown whether they are an adult. After hearing of the charity'spurpose, the answering individual may offer to provide a donation. Inthis case, it may be appropriate for the agent to confirm that thepotential donor is over 18 years of age. Thus, this is another exampleof a potential AAO where the agent may be reminded of the need to verifythe potential donor's status before proceeding with processing thedonation.

Another example involves a remote party who had ordered an item on-linecalling a customer service agent indicating that the wrong item of theorder was packed and shipped to them. Because of a recent mix-up infulfilling orders, the agents may have been notified at the beginning ofthe week that all such calls should involve consultation with asupervisor. Thus, an AAO exists in this type of situation in which theagent is to be reminded of the temporary procedures for handling such acall.

In another example, a remote party discussing a potential purchase withan agent may be informed by the agent of a “free shipping offer” for allpurchases over $100 as an incentive to place the order. This presentsanother AAO in which the agent can be reminded to provide certaininformation to the remote party.

As evident from the above examples, those skilled in the art of contactcenters can envision a myriad of opportunities in which the agent couldbe reminded of a particular procedure, policy, or opportunity to providesuperior customer service that is expected by contact center management.The list of such opportunities is numerous, and these are but a fewexamples that can be used to illustrate the concepts and technologiesherein and are not intended to limit the application of the principles.

The identification of an AAO may occur either in anticipation of theagent not recognizing or acting in advance of the opportunity ordetermining the agent did not act on the opportunity. For example,returning to the charitable donation solicitation example, it can beexpected that agents are trained to verify that the donor is an adult.Experienced agents may know this, but novice agents may forget. Ininstances where this verification did not occur, the speech analyticssystem could identify the AAO based on the agent's lack of verificationproceeding the actual solicitation of the donation, and provide anaudible message (e.g., “verify age”) to remind the agent to verify theage of the donor. Since every solicitation call presumably could lead toa donation, it may be irritating to the agent for the speech analyticssystem to remind the agent in each instance to “verify age” of thedonor, as opposed to only in instances where the agent forgot to do soand when a solicitation was discussed. Thus, this type of AAO may beidentified after it is determined the opportunity was missed by theagent.

In other examples, the speech analytics system could identify the AAO inan anticipatory manner. For example, returning to the example of where acustomer purchasing a product is eligible for free shipping on apurchase, the speech analytics system may remind the agent of thisopportunity prior to the remote caller actually purchasing a product.Specifically, the speech analytics system may deduce that the caller isasking various questions about a product, which may indicate hesitancyof the caller to consummate the purchase. The speech analytics systemmay identify this as an AAO and assist the agent in closing thetransaction, by reminding the agent to inform the caller of the freeshipping offer. While it is possible that once the agent takes theorder, the ordering system may compute a zero shipping cost, informingthe agent at this point does not proactively remind the agent to informthe customer, which could have been an opportunity for the agent toincentive the remote party to place the order. Thus, this type of AAO isprovided in order to ensure the agent does not miss the opportunity.

The provision of information to assist the agent may include informationto remind, inform, or otherwise command the agent. This is referred toherein as “agent assistance information” or AAI. The AAI can takevarious forms, namely aural or visual. The contents of the aural form iscalled a “whisper.” The exact content or form of the whisper can vary,but it may be verbal and include a word, phrase, or sentence(s). Thereare other forms of aural AAIs, which are non-verbal, and may includesounds such as beeps, tones, buzzes, or other sounds, which can alsoserve as reminders or convey information. However, using a non-verbalsound is relatively limited because the number of distinct sounds thatan agent can readily recognize is limited. Using a verbal whisper allowsa large number of meanings to be easily conveyed.

The provision of the exact contents of the whisper to the agent dependson the speech analytics system identifying the particular AAO and actingupon it. Whether the AAO is identified by the speech analytics system inadvance of the agent failing to appreciate the opportunity, during thetime at which the agent does identify the opportunity, or past the timethe agent should have identified the opportunity is a designconsideration. In other words, the speech analytics system is notnecessarily cognizant of which classification the AAO is associatedwith, but this may be useful to system architects when configuring thespeech analytics system to identify the AAO. For example, one form ofwhisper may be used in anticipating the AAO while another form may beused after the agent failed to recognize an opportunity.

Once an AAO is identified by the speech analytics system, severalactions may take place to inform or remind the agent of the opportunity.In one embodiment, a whisper in the form of a short audible verbalmessage functions to remind the agent of a particular action to be takenor information to assist the agent. For example, returning to thecharitable donation example, the whisper could be a voice promptindicating “verify age” and could serve as a reminder for the agent toask the remote caller whether they are over 18 years of age. The whispermay also provide information to the agent, which may be useful to theagent in answering a remote party's question. For example, if the remoteparty asked about a maximum time period that is allowed for the customerto return an item, the whisper could provide information to the agentrelated to the question (e.g., “two months”).

The AAI can also be visually based, such as text or an icon (referred toherein as “visual AAI”). A visual AAI can be provided to the agent ontheir computer display screen reminding them of a course of action. Asnoted earlier, this form of AAI may not be effective if the agent isvisually impaired. In other instances, the agent may be using a wirelessheadset and has stepped away from their terminal such that they aretemporarily out-of-view of their display screen. In other instanceswhere the agent is not visually impaired, the agent may have a number ofopen windows on their display screen, resulting in a “cluttered” displayscreen, so that another pop-up window appearing may not be readilydiscernible. Thus, the whisper can be effective for helping agents fullytake advantage of an opportunity where the agent may be unable toreadily view textual information that would be displayed on aworkstation computer or may not notice such visual information.

The provision of aural AAI can also be combined with the provision of avisual AAI. The provision of the different forms of AAI may occursimultaneously or serially. In some embodiments, a whisper may beprovided along with a visual AAI that conveys the same information. Inother embodiments, the visual AAI may be different from the informationconveyed by the aural AAI. For example, the whisper may provide a highlevel reminder to the agent of a given expected action (e.g. “verifyage”) whereas the textual display may provide more detailed informationabout the requirements of the agent's actions (e.g., “verify that calleris over the age of 18”). In another example, the text display mayindicate “verify age” and when the agent fails to do so, the aural AAIcould be provided in the form of a warning tone, which signifies thatthe agent should review the visual AAI.

If the aural AAI (e.g., whisper) is provided serially with a visual AAI(e.g., text display), either the whisper or the text display may beprovided first. The first AAI can be provided to encourage an action bythe agent. This may be either e.g., the text display or a whisper. If noexpected response is detected from the agent after a defined timeperiod, then a second AAI can be provided in the other form. Finally, ifan appropriate agent response is not detected, then a potentialcompliance issue may be written to a file. In other embodiments, anagent compliance score or rating may be determined. The provision of avisual AAI, for example a text display, may be initially provided to theagent, but may go unnoticed because of a “cluttered” display screen orbecause the agent cannot readily view the screen. The provision of asecond AAI, e.g., a whisper, ensures that agent is reminded to take acourse of action and avoids the potential difficulties of the agent notbeing able to readily view the screen. The provision of the second AAIcan be contingent on the agent not acting on the first AAI. Thisprovides a form of second reminder to the agent.

The provision of the whisper can originate from various sources, andthis can be defined on a campaign level, on an agent level, and for aparticular AAO on the call. It is quite possible that a given call maygive rise to multiple AAO. Other combinations are possible. The sourcesof a whisper include an announcement system, which may provideprerecorded audio announcements, tones, or other sounds. These may berecorded in the voice of the particular agent, or may be recorded inanother voice. The announcements can originate from a distinctannouncement system or from a speech analytics system which incorporatesan integrated announcement capability. The whisper can also originatefrom a text-to-speech (“TTS”) system which is integrated into the speechanalytics system or is integrated into the announcement system.

Finally, the whisper may originate from a human. In this case, thewhisper is not necessarily a short audible phrase that is interjectedinto the call to the agent by a separate system, but reflects thecapability of the speech analytics system to conference into the callanother person. This uses a special form of the whisper bridge, calledherein a “whisper conference bridge.” A whisper bridge allows the auralAAI to be provided to the agent without the remote party hearing theaural AAI. A whisper conference bridge allows another person, typicallya supervisor or coaching staff, to listen in on the call to the remoteparty with the agent, and provide feedback to the agent during the call.As with the other instances of a whisper, the remote party does not hearthe whisper. Although there are different embodiments of a whisperbridge, a distinction between a whisper bridge and the whisperconference bridge is that in the whisper bridge, the whisper audiosource does not need to hear the audio of the call. However, in thewhisper conference bridge, the coaching staff (which is the source ofthe whisper audio) does need to hear the audio of the call. In otherwords, a whisper bridge is typically used with recorded or TTS speechwhereas a whisper conference bridge is typically used with a person.

The speech analytic system determines when a suitable AAO has occurred,and directs the announcement system or TTS to interject the whisper. Inother embodiments, the speech analytics system may respond by alsoinvoking a whisper conference bridge, which adds on a supervisor/coachonto the call. In this embodiment, the supervisor may determine theappropriate whisper, if any, to provide. This allows the supervisor tocoach the agent during the call, which may be used if the call isconsidered problematic or to treat the call as a possible training orevaluation opportunity.

The various forms of the whisper bridge may be integrated into a callhandler, into a separate system, or distributed among variouscomponents. For example, a portion of the whisper bridge may beimplemented in the agent's computer, which may have a “soft phone” thatprovides the voice audio to the agent. A soft phone may include a phoneimplemented in a computer workstation via software that processes VoIPand provides the audio to the agent via a headset connected to thecomputer. In such instances, the aural AAI source may provide thewhisper audio directly to the agent's computer, and a portion of thewhisper bridge may be implemented in the agent's computer.

Contact Center Architecture

Turning to FIG. 1, a high level architecture 100 of one embodiment ofthe relevant components involved in a contact center is shown. Thearchitecture 100 shows a remote party represented by a conventionaltelephone 102, although any number of devices and technologies may beused by the remote party. The remote party converses with an agent usingcall leg 123 of a contact center, and the remote party may be a callingparty or a called party relative to the contact center. For purpose ofillustration, and not for limitation, the examples herein focus on thecontact center originating the call to the remote party, although itshould be readily apparent that the principles can equally apply tocalls received by the contact center. Although the remote party is shownas using a conventional telephone and the communication network 103 maybe a telephone network, other networks and communications technologiesmay be employed, such as Voice over IP (“VoIP”), cable networks, mobilenetworks, etc.

The remote party receives a call that originated from a call handler 110and is routed by the communication network 103. The call handler 110 maybe one of any number of various devices used for processing calls in acontact center, including but not limited to: dialers, predictivedialers, automatic call distributors (“ACDs”), interactive voiceresponse units (“IVRs”), private branch exchanges (“PBXs”), etc.

The call handler may connect the call leg 123 between the remote partyand the agent. The agent may utilize a computer 160, which may be partof a workstation used by the agent and may also include a voice device(i.e., phone), such as a headset, telephone, or a so-called soft-phoneintegrated into the computer 160. FIG. 1 does not explicitly show avoice processing device separate from the computer, but some sort ofphone device may be assumed to be present. A local area network (“LAN”)177 may be used to transfer voice and/or non-voice data to the agent'sworkstation and communicate with other components and over one or morelinks 126, channels, circuits, or other such constructs to the agent'scomputer. In other embodiments, separate facilities may be used fortransferring data to the agent's computer and for the transfer of voicecommunication to the agent's phone. The exact technology andconfiguration of the agent's workstation at this point is not relevant,as long as there is a voice connection between the agent and the remoteparty. There may be a number of other configurations involved withrespect to connecting the remote party and the agent, but this does notalter the principles of the concepts disclosed herein.

Once the remote party is connected to the agent, the call handler 110may automatically bridge on a speech analytics system (“SAS”) 170 to awhisper bridge (or simply referred to herein as “bridge”) 111 using callleg 127. This arrangement allows the SAS 170 to monitor an ongoingverbal conversation between the remote party and the agent. The SAS maydetermine by monitoring the speech of the agent and/or remote party whenan AAO arises. Once this has been determined, the SAS 170 may send amessage over link 119 to an announcement system 130 to provide theappropriate whisper to the agent. The announcement system may beco-located in and part of the contact center. The announcement systemmay provide the whisper using a voice channel 128 a or 128 b. In oneembodiment, the whisper is provided over voice channel 128 a to thewhisper bridge 111, which then conveys the whisper to the agent. Thewhisper bridge 111, however, ensures that the whisper is not providedto, nor heard by, the remote caller. In another embodiment, the voicechannel 128 b may be used, which bypasses the whisper bridge 111 in thecall handler and provides the whisper directly to the computer 160,which is the provided to the agent. In this embodiment, a form of thewhisper bridge may be implemented in the agent's computer 160 andensures the whisper is not heard by the remote party.

In various embodiments, these components, namely the bridge, may beconfigured so that the agent only hears the audio from the whisper whenit is being provided and the audio from the remote party is temporarilymuted when the whisper is provided. In other embodiments disclosedherein, it is assumed that the whisper audio is merged with the audiofrom the remote party so that the agent hears both simultaneously (i.e.,if the remote party speaks when the whisper is being provided). It ispossible that if the remote party and the whisper occur simultaneouslythat the agent will not understand one or the other (or both). However,with experience and training, the agent is likely to understand at leastthe whisper instructions if it is provided while the remote party istalking. This is one reason why the whisper commands/reminders aretypically short in duration, so as to minimize the potential overlap. Insome embodiments, the whisper bridge may also incorporate a gain orvolume control, which ensures the whisper is of a certain minimum ormaximum loudness level.

In one embodiment, the SAS 170 may monitor the remote party's speech todetermine a lull or temporary cessation of the remote party's speech andthen send the message over link 119 to the announcement system to playthe whisper. This may reduce the likelihood of the whisper beingprovided while the remote party is speaking. This may be accomplished bythe SAS defining a time window for issuing the command, and if not sentby the end of the time window, then the command is sent nevertheless.However, in many cases, a party will speak to the agent for a fewseconds, and then will take a pause or other form of audible break,providing a suitable window for the SAS to originate the command.

Returning to the SAS 170 shown in FIG. 1, the SAS comprises in oneembodiment a speech analytics module (“SAM”) 120, an event handlermodule (“EHM”) 150, and an Agent Whisper Control Application SpecificModule (“AWC-ASM”) 165. These modules cooperate so as to monitor thespeech present during a call, identify an AAO, and cause a whisper to beprovided to the agent. The AWC-ASM 165 may also cause other forms of AAIto be provided to the agent. More will be said below as to how thesemodules cooperate to accomplish this.

Each of these modules 120, 150, 165 may comprise a software modulecomprising a set of computer instructions along with a separate hardwareprocessing system. Or, the software may be integrated and executing in asingle common hardware processing system. Other variations are possible.In some embodiments, the event handler module 150 and the ASC-ASM 165are integrated into one module, while other embodiments may integratethe SAM 120 with the event handler module 150. It is also possible forsome of the modules to be offered as a service by a service provider, orimplemented in a premised-based solution by a contact center.

For example, in one embodiment, the call handler may be offered as apremise-based or a hosted service (e.g., in the “cloud”), and bridges onthe SAS 170, which is also offered as a hosted service. The call handlerand the SAS may be remotely located from each other and operated andcontrolled by different entities. However, all the agent computers maybe co-located in a single physical location, which comprises the“premised based” call center portion. In other embodiments, the agentcomputers may be dispersed (e.g., work-at-home). Similarly, theannouncement system 130 may be a hosted service, or co-located with theother system components. In this figure, the announcement system 130 isaccessed as a local component to the contact center using a link 119,which may be provided using a LAN, such as the aforementioned LAN 177.To clarify the inventive concepts, the description is based ondescribing various functions and their interaction with each other, andit should be recognized that these modules may be deployed in variousconfiguration, physical components, and at different locations.

For the SAS 170 to monitor the speech between the remote party and theagent during the call, a whisper bridge 111 can be used. In thisembodiment, the whisper bridge 111 is shown as located inside the callhandler 110. In other embodiments, a whisper bridge server or peripheralcould be used. The whisper bridge allows three or four parties toparticipate in a common call, where each is connected by a call leg. Acall leg may be either a bi-directional or unidirectional voice path(s).For example, each call leg in a conventional bridge receives audio thatis distributed to each other call leg, whereas a whisper bridge isconfigured so that audio from a particular call leg is not necessarilyprovided to each other call leg to each other party on the whisperbridge.

The whisper bridge comprises one call leg that goes to the remote party,a second call leg that goes to the agent, a third call leg that goes tothe SAS, and potentially a fourth call leg that goes to the announcementsystem. As will be seen, the announcement system may be integrated intothe SAS, could be a text-to-speech system, or a human. From theperspective of the two endpoints associated with a call leg in aconference call, the call leg may be largely indistinguishable from aconventional call. Thus, a call leg involving two entities may bereferenced herein as a call or as a call leg.

Use of the term “call leg” does not imply a particular form oftechnology. Nor does the use of that term imply any particular physicalstructure of the call leg. The call leg may represent a single virtualcircuit, audio stream, link, connection, path, channel, or some otherconstruct and/or name representing audio communications. Further, thereference to a bridge does not imply use of any particular form oftechnology, e.g., an analog bridge, digital bridge, etc.

The call legs can be implemented in a number of ways, and again it ispossible to use a number of different technologies. It is possible thatone call leg along its portion may use one technology, and anothertechnology for the remaining portion, both of which may be distinct fromanother call leg using another technology. For example, the call leg tothe remote party may be converted to an analog phone line with analogvoice transmission to accommodate a conventional telephone, whereas thecall leg to the SAS may be based on Voice over IP (“VoIP”) technology.Similarly, the whisper bridge may be implemented to process voice in asingle form, such as VoIP.

For purposes of illustration, in certain embodiments, although a singlecall leg is described as being established, that call leg may involvemultiple virtual connections, voice channels, or audio streams. Forexample, the call leg from the call handler 110 to the SAM 120 mayinvolve establishing multiple VoIP streams or virtual connections to theSAM. For simplicity, FIG. 1 shows a single line 127 associated betweenthe SAM the whisper bridge 111, but the single line 127 in FIG. 1 canrepresent multiple VoIP streams associated with the call. There could bemultiple VoIP streams received by the SAM in conjunction with the callleg to allow the SAM to separately analyze speech from the remote partyand the agent. In other embodiments, this could be accomplished by usinga single VoIP stream that conveys audio to the SAM, but using multiplestreams facilitates the SAM distinguishing audio from one source fromthe other. Further, the call leg 127 depicts an arrow in the directiongoing to the SAM, implying a unidirectional path. More specifically,FIG. 1 does not show the SAS providing speech or audio back into thewhisper bridge. There are embodiments, as will be seen, in which theannouncement system may be integrated into the SAS, or the SASincorporates a TTS system, such that audio is provided from the SAS tothe whisper bridge.

However, in many embodiments only two separate VoIP streams areestablished to the SAM—one for the agent and one for the remote party.This is described further in the above identified patent, U.S. Pat. No.9,456,083. It may be advantageous to utilize this same architecture,which is based on the use of dual voice streams, for the principles andconcepts disclosed herein. If so, then one VoIP stream to the SAM (whichcan be referred to as VoIP Stream #1 for convenience) conveys audio fromthe remote party only, and the other VoIP Stream (referred to as VoIPStream #2) conveys combined audio from the agent. In some embodiments,the audio from the agent may include whisper audio as well.

A signaling link 115 between the call handler 110 and the SAM 120provides the appropriate signaling information necessary to establishand terminate the VoIP streams on call leg 127 and indicate to the SASthe necessary information for when the call leg is established. However,in other embodiments, the signaling link 116 may also exist and may beused to convey such signaling information to the SAS instead of, or inaddition to, the link 115. In FIG. 1, signaling or control data isgenerally shown as a dotted line and voice data is shown as a solidline. Use of the word “link” does not imply any particular logical orphysical communication structure, protocol, or format used.

As previously indicated, the SAS 170 comprises the SAM 120, eventhandler module 150, and the AWC-ASM 165, which cooperate together tocontrol the announcement system for providing the appropriate whispersto the agent. In other embodiments, the modules in the SAS cooperate tocontrol an integrated TTS module or invoke a whisper conference bridge.

A primary function of the SAM 120 is to listen to the speech of the calland provide specific event notifications to the event handler module150. In one embodiment, the SAM can be configured to listen to thespeech from either the remote party or the agent (or both). In oneembodiment, two VoIP streams are used for the call leg, so that the SAMcan readily detect the remote party's speech and speech from the agent.

The SAM is typically configured to identify speech from the agent orremote party that is defined in the AWC-ASM to indicate that a specificform of an AAO is present. This determination is context specific, andmay be defined for specific purposes as determined by the contact centermanagement when configuring the SAS. Further examples and discussion ofthis is provided below. In general, the process begins with the SAMdetecting certain words or phrases (“keywords”), which cause the SAM 120to generate event notification. These event notifications are receivedby the event handler module 150 using link 118.

Event notifications are messages that indicate information about a callor about speech detected on the call. The former event notificationmessages are referred to as “call-related event notification messages”or simply “call-related event notifications” and these indicate theestablishment or termination of a call leg to the SAM. The latter eventnotification messages are referred to as “speech-related eventnotification messages” or simply “speech-related event notifications”and these indicate detection of a particular keyword in the speech of aparticular call. For simplicity, the “messages” qualifier may not beused in all instances herein.

The speech-related event notifications originate from the SAM 120 andare transmitted to the event handler module as depicted by link 118. Forexample, returning to the example involving soliciting charitabledonations from a potential under-age donor, this condition may bedefined as an AAO. The conditions could be detected when the agent asksthe remote party, for example, “Would you like to make a donation?” TheSAM can then report such speech occurrences to the event handler module150. The event handler module ensures that the correct ASM receives theappropriate event notifications, as there may be a variety ofapplication specific modules executing for various purposes. Further,there may be multiple simultaneous calls handled by the same ASM.Further, for a given call there may be a number of AAOs defined that canbe detected. The event handler also ensures that the proper contextualinformation is provided to the proper ASM, which for this application isthe AWC-ASM 165. This contextual information may include which call thespeech-related event notification relates to (indicated by some form ofcall identifier), which party spoke the keyword (e.g., the agent orremote party), and of course, which keyword was detected (indicating theword/phrase or a particular context).

In contrast to speech-related event notifications for which there can bezero or many for a given call, there are typically only two call-relatedevent notifications associated with a given call that are conveyed tothe event handler module. The first is an indication that the call hasbeen established and the other is that the call has been terminated. Bydefinition, each call must have at least these two event notificationsgenerated.

Because the speech-related event notifications are directly related todetecting keywords during a particular call, receiving a speech-relatedevent notification requires that a corresponding call-related eventnotification was previously generated. The speech-related eventnotification references the call through some sort of identifier, andhence the identifier must have been previously generated.

In many contexts discussed herein, reference to an “event notification”for a call implicitly refers to a speech-related event notification forthat call. Usually, the context in which the phrase is used willindicate whether the term “event notification” refers to both types orjust refers to the speech-related type of event notifications.Furthermore, because each call is initiated and terminated, acorresponding call-related event notification indicating the beginningand end of the call is normally generated and assumed. The proceduresfor handling call-related event notifications are relativelystraightforward and are similar for various applications. However, theremay any number of speech-related event notifications and the processingof these is context and application dependent. The event handler ensuresthat only the speech-related event notifications defined for the whispercontrol process are sent to the AWC-ASM.

The call handler 110 provides information via signaling link 115 to theSAM 120 regarding call legs established from the call handler to theSAM, as well as call legs that are terminated because the call betweenthe agent and remote party has been terminated. In some embodiments, theSAM may provide the call-related event notification messages to theevent handler module using link 118. In other embodiments, the callhandler may provide the call-related event notification messages to theevent handler module using link 116. In either embodiment, the eventhandler module receives the call-related event notification messages andthe AWC-ASM is aware of the creation and termination of call legsinvolving the call handler and the SAM, which correspond to the calllegs created and terminated between the agent and remote party.

At a high level, the purpose of the event handler module is to route theevent notification messages to the appropriate ASM. There may be anumber of different types of ASMs defined, which may require receivingevent notification messages. In one embodiment, the event handler moduleis configured to route a copy of each call-related event notificationmessages to each ASM, and route a copy of each speech-related eventnotification message to only the appropriate ASMs as defined. In otherwords, the event handler may route speech-related event notificationmessage to each ASM, or selectively route the speech-related eventnotification to only certain ASMs. For example, if there are multipleASMs used for different purposes, then the event handler ensures theproper ASMs receive the appropriate event notifications via link 155.Further information as to the reasoning and details of this operationcan be found in the aforementioned patent applications incorporated byreference.

To recap, the event-handler module 150 receives event notifications,which may be either call-related or speech related. The call-relatedevent notifications may be received from the SAM on link 118 or from thecall handler on link 116. The speech-related event notifications aretypically received from the SAM 120 on link 118. The event handlermodule informs the appropriate ASMs of the speech-related eventnotifications using link 155.

The AWC-ASM comprises the logic to handle the AAO and to takeappropriate actions, such as command the announcement system (or othercomponent) to provide the appropriate whisper. Several examples weregiven where the SAS may detect an AAO and cause a whisper to be providedto the agent. These were examples where a single aural AAI is providedto the agent. More complicated examples may incorporate multiple AAIs ofdifferent types during a call to an agent.

For example, an aural AAI provided to the agent may be preceded by, orfollowed by, a visual AAI to the agent. If the agent does notappropriately respond to one form of the AAI within a first time period,then a second reminder in a different form may be provided. Anappropriate response can be determined, for example, by monitoring thespeech from the agent by the SAS. If the agent does not respond within asecond time period after the second reminder, then a non-complianceindication may be recorded for that agent. In other embodiments, theASC-ASM may comprise logic to identify the AAO and, in response, causethe whisper conference bridge establish a call leg to a supervisor, whocan coach the agent.

Whisper Conference Bridge

As shown in FIG. 1, the whisper bridge 111 may be located in the callhandler 110 in one embodiment, and has call legs established to theremote party, the agent, the SAS, and the announcement system. The callleg to the announcement system may be established at the beginning ofthe call, even before an AAO is identified, or it may be establishedwhen the SAS identifies an AAO and the whisper is to be provided. Thus,during the call, the whisper bridge may be a three port whisper bridge,which then changes to a four port whisper bridge, and back to a threeport, or it may simply be a four port whisper bridge for the duration ofthe call.

The whisper bridge may be, in one embodiment, a modified four-portconference bridge that is configurable to provide and receive audioinformation to and from particular parties on the call in a certainmanner. A variety of technologies and architectures can be used toconstruct the whisper bridge. In the embodiment disclosed herein, anarchitecture is provided that can be used for constructing the whisperbridge from components that are optimized for handling digitizedpacketized voice, such as VoIP. The whisper bridge can be constructed ina modular arrangement using two components: a splitter and a combiner asshown in FIG. 2. Each of these components can be constructed in avariety of ways, including hardware or a combination of hardware andsoftware. For example, processors that route and process voice packetscan be used to form a splitter and/or combiner. Those skilled in the artof voice processing will recognize different methods for constructingthese components in light of the present disclosure.

Turning to FIG. 2, the splitter 200 functions to receive an input andcopy the information onto two outputs. The combiner 250 functions toreceive two inputs and multiplex them on a single output. Focusing onthe splitter 200 first, the splitter 200 can be implemented in a varietyof ways, such as by using a router or a processor configured to performa routing function which receives voice information and provides it tothe appropriate outputs with the appropriate identifiers. This couldalso be implemented in hardware or a combination of hardware andsoftware. Those skilled in the art will recognize in light of thisdisclosure that the splitter (and combiner) can be implemented invarious ways.

The splitter 200 receives information, typically representing voice orpacketized voice samples at an input 210 that are then duplicated at afirst output 220 and a second output 230. A node 225 represents theduplication processing. Since the splitter is a module which will beused to construct the whisper bridge, the following convention is usedto aid in understanding the more complex structures. First of all, asolid circle 205 a is used to facilitate visually identifying thesplitter. An alpha-numeric label 207 a of the identifying name of thesplitter is provided (“1^(st) Splitter”), along with alpha-numericlabels 217 a, 217 b referencing a first output and a second output.These labels function to only distinguish and identify the two distinctoutputs and no priority is implied by the labels of “first” or “second.”A label 203 for the input may be shown, but because a splitter has onlyone input, the input is typically not labeled as such in the figuresherein. Referencing the input of a particular splitter is sufficient toidentify that point with particularity. Further, directional arrows maybe included on the diagram to aid in showing the direction of the flowof audio information. In a splitter, information always flows into thesingle input and to the two outputs.

A splitter may be referred to by the alpha-numeric label 207 a (e.g.,“1^(st) Splitter”, “first splitter” or “1 S”) and a particular outputmay be identified as a “1^(st) output” or a “2^(nd) output”(alternately, “1st out” or “2nd out”) 217 a, 217 b. These may becombined in a shorthand manner—e.g., “1^(st) out 1S” for the firstoutput of the first splitter. This convention is sufficient to uniquelyidentify a particular leg into or out of a particular splitter andreference numerals are not always used in the following figures forclarity.

The combiner 250 functions in the reverse, namely to receive two inputsand then multiplexed the inputs onto a single output. The output label253 may not always be indicated, since there is only one output 260 on acombiner. A dotted circular line 205 b further aids in visuallyidentifying and distinguishing the combiner, and an alpha-numeric label207 b can be used to identify and distinguish the specific combiner,such as “1^(st) Combiner” or “1 C”. Since there are two inputs 270, 280,labels 269 a, 269 b can be used to distinguish the inputs (e.g., “1^(st)input” or “1^(st) in”). A node 275 represents the combining of audioinformation.

There are various embodiments of a whisper bridge, depending on thedesired operation, and these can be described as variations thatincorporate common basic structures based on the splitters andcombiners. Once such embodiment is shown in FIG. 3 and involves fourports (i.e., a port is one or more voice paths to a distinct entity).

The structure of this whisper bridge 300 is designed to provide a portfor the remote party that is bidirectional and allows the remote partyto hear the agent, but not the whisper. The agent is also provided aport and can hear both the remote party and the whisper. Theannouncement system is provided a port, but it only provides the whisperand does not need to hear the other parties. Finally, the SAS has aport, which in this embodiment comprises two audio streams—one from theremote party 315 and one from the agent/announcement system 320. Thisfacilities identifying which audio is from which party. Even though theSAS has two streams, this is still considered a single port of thewhisper bridge and referred to as involving a single call leg.

To facilitate the explanation of the whisper bridge operation, thenomenclature used herein involves referencing a component in thethree-port bridge by identifying a particular splitter or combiner, inconjunction with an appropriate indicator of “output” or “input.” If thedevice has multiple inputs or outputs, then a particular “first” or“second” qualifier is used. Thus, the 1^(st) input to the 2^(nd)Combiner 302 (also referred to as “1^(st) in-2C”) is identified in FIG.3. This is equivalent to the audio produced from the 2^(nd) output ofthe first splitter (“2^(nd) out-2C”).

Turning to FIG. 3, some of the audio flows are now examined to aid inthe understanding of its operation. Turning first to the port involvingthe remote party, there is an input 305 to the whisper bridge 300 thatis received by the first splitter (“1S”). This audio is sent as theoutput 315 of the port connected to the SAS. This output 315 representsaudio from the remote party. Thus, the SAS can readily identify audiofrom the remote party as the audio present on output 315. The audio fromthe remote party is also duplicated by 2^(nd) out-1S and sent to 1^(st)in-2C. Thus, the agent also hears the audio from the remote party aswell.

The whisper from the announcement system is provided as an input 325 onanother port. The announcement system only provides audio to the whisperbridge and does not receive audio. The audio from the announcementsystem is received at the input of 3S, and the 1^(st)-3S out is providedto 2^(nd) in-1C, which in turn is provided to the SAS. Further, thewhisper is also provided on 2^(nd) out-3S, which is further combined andprovided to the audio 330 to the agent. Thus, the whisper is heard bythe SAS and the agent. In some embodiments, the whisper may not beprovided to the SAS. However, doing so allows the SAS to monitor theprovision of a whisper and the SAS can detect when a whisper isprovided.

There are other audio flows that exist in FIG. 3. For example, audiofrom the agent is provided to the remote party and the SAS, but not theannouncement system. Those skilled in the art can trace all the possibleflows of audio information in FIG. 3. Some of the salient aspects ofthis embodiment of a whisper bridge is that the SAS hears the audio ofthe remote party on one stream 315, and the audio of the agent/whisperon another stream 320. Further, the remote party does not hear thewhisper, but the agent does hear the whisper on one stream 330. Audiofrom the agent 335 is provided to the remote party via output 310 andthe SAS via output 320. Finally, the SAS does not provide any audio intothe whisper bridge, and the announcement system does not receive anyaudio.

Another embodiment of a whisper bridge 400 is shown in FIG. 4. Thisembodiment can be viewed as modifying the embodiment of FIG. 3 byremoving the first combiner (1C) of FIG. 3. Removing this combiner meansthat the SAS in FIG. 4 does not hear the whisper. In FIG. 4, the audiochannel 405 from the announcement system is received as the 2^(nd) in-1Cwhich is provided on audio channel 430 to the agent. There is noprovision of the whisper to the SAS, thus, there is no need for 1C ofFIG. 3. In FIG. 4, audio from the agent is received on an input 435 andprovided to both the SAS and the remote party.

Thus, the salient aspects of this embodiment of the whisper bridge 400is that the SAS hears the remote party on one audio channel and theagent audio on another audio channel, but does not provide any audiointo the bridge. The announcement system provides whispers as an inputto the whisper bridge, and the whisper is only received by the agent,and not by the SAS or the remote party.

Also shown in FIG. 4 is a gain control module 410. This is an optionalmodule which can ensure a certain limit the audio level of the whisperto the agent. This may be present in other embodiments of the whisperbridge, but is only shown in FIG. 4 for simplicity. This ensures that adesired audio level of the whisper is maintained when provided to theagent on voice channel 430. This can ensure that the whisper does notexceed a certain level, or does not drop below the certain level. Insome embodiments, the AWC-ASM may control the gain or volume.

Another embodiment of a whisper bridge is shown in FIG. 5. In thisembodiment, the whisper bridge 500 is configured to accommodate a SASthat incorporates an integrated announcement capability, or a TTS, forproviding the whispers. In this embodiment, the bridge 500 comprises twosplitters and one combiner. The whisper bridge 500 has three ports, withone part for the SAS and having two voice channels 505, 510. One channel505 is for receiving audio from the remote party and the other voicechannel 510 is for receiving audio from the agent. A separate voicechannel 515 conveys the whisper from the SAS to the bridge 500. Thewhisper audio is received at 2^(nd) in-1C is then provided to the agent.Thus, the agent hears the whisper, but the remote party does not.

In summary, the various embodiments of the whisper bridges shown inFIGS. 3-5 accommodate either separate or integrated announcement systemsrelative to the SAS. Further, the whisper bridge can be configured sothat the SAS can monitor the provision of the whisper. If this is notrequired, then the whisper bridge construction is simplified. Althoughthese embodiments illustrate how the various splitters and combiners canbe configured and integrated into a single whisper bridge located in thecall handler, these components could be implemented in a bridge that isexternal from the call handler, or in a distributed manner. For example,some of the splitters and/or combiners could be implemented in theagent's computer. Specifically, for example, the combiner 1C in FIG. 4could be located in the agent's computer, resulting in the agent'scomputer receiving a first audio channel from the whisper bridge andsecond audio channel from the announcement system. Thus, there arevarious distributed arrangements of implementing the combiners andsplitters in various configurations.

Service Overview

As evident, there are a variety of contexts and applications foridentifying an AAO and providing AAI to agent. Many of theseapplications or contexts may be relatively focused and highly specific.The example presented herein may be more complex than other embodiments,but illustrates various capabilities that may be used in otherembodiments. In many simpler embodiments, only a single aural AAI (i.e.,a whisper) is provided to the agent as a reminder. In other embodiments,multiple forms of AAI may be provided to the agent, where one of them isa whisper. Further, agent reaction to the AAI can be gauged and used toinfluence how and whether subsequent AAIs should be provided to theagent. This is illustrated in the overview provided below.

The high level overview 600 shown in FIG. 6 involves detecting an AAOduring a call, providing first a visual based AAI to the agent inresponse thereto, determining whether the agent has properly respondedto the first AAI, and if not, then providing a second AAI in the form ofan aural AAI comprising an audible whisper to the agent, and thendetermining whether the agent has reacted to the second AAI in somemanner. If not, then a potential agent compliance violation is recorded.This example used herein builds upon the aforementioned charitabledonation example, although the principles could be applied to othercontexts.

The process 600 begins with the remote party being called by the contactcenter in operation 606. The agent verbally interacts with the remoteparty in operation 610. During the interaction, the SAS monitors thedialogue. For example, the SAS may monitor the dialogue to determinewhether there was 1) any inquiry by the agent that the potential donoris over 18 years of age, and 2) whether the dialogue involves discussionof a charitable contribution.

The AAO may be triggered by logic in the SAS by detecting certainkeywords in operation 616. For example, the SAS may have determinedthere was no inquiry of the potential donor's age and there is nowdiscussion of a potential donation amount. This context may reflect thatthe agent is waiting to confirm the donor's age after a commitment isagreed to, or this context may reflect that the agent forgot to inquire.

The SAS responds to the AAO by providing a visual AAI in the form of atext-based reminder, such as in a pop-up window, on the agent's computerscreen in operation 620. Further, the SAS starts a first response timerto determine if the agent responds to the visual AAI in some manner inoperation 625. The agent response could be: selecting an icon in thepop-up window confirming reviewing the reminder, the agent invokinganother function, or simply asking the remote party to confirm they areover 18 years of age.

If an appropriate agent response is detected in operation 630, theprocess then loops back to 616 where the SAS continues to monitor thecall for keywords that indicate an AAO. The detection of an appropriateresponse depends on the nature of the response. For example, if theappropriate response is to confirm the donor is over 18 years of age,the SAS could monitor the agent's speech for this response. However, ifno such appropriate response is detected in operation 630, then the testfor an appropriate response is repeated by checking whether the firstresponse timer expired in operation 635. If the first response timerdoes not expire in operation 635, then the process loops back tooperation 630, which continues to monitor for a response.

If the first response timer in operation 635 does expire, it means thatthe agent has not acted upon the visual AAI provided to the agent. Forexample, no speech may have been detected from the agent that involvedasking the called party whether they are over 18. Assuming the agent isnot visually impaired, this may signify that the agent is not able toreadily view their display screen, or such information was not readilycognizable by the agent. Thus, the SAS determines that it is appropriateto provide an aural AAI in the form of a whisper to the agent inoperation 640. This may presume that the whisper bridge is already beingused in the call.

After providing the whisper, a second response timer is started inoperation 645. If an appropriate agent response is detected in operation650, the process then loops back to operation 616 for detecting anotherrelevant keyword. If no response is detected in operation 650, then atest of the second response timer is checked in operation 655. If it hasnot expired, then the process loops back to operation 650 to checkwhether an appropriate response has been detected. If the secondresponse timer has expired in operation 655, then this indicates theagent has ignored both the visual AAI and the aural AAI. In this case, arecord is made of the agent's failure to respond in operation 660. Thiscan impact an agent compliance score or rating in a negative manner. Theprocess has completed at this point.

In other embodiments, an alert could be sent to the agent's supervisor,another aural AAI could be provided (e.g., an audible warning tone), orsome other action to escalate the seriousness of the situation to theagent.

The detection of a suitable response from the agent may be determined bythe SAS monitoring certain words appropriate for the given context.Determining whether there is a suitable response to the whisper may berelated to the same processing that determines whether an AAO istriggered. For example, determining whether there is an inquiry to thepotential donor as to whether they are a minor may be the basis foridentifying the AAO. Specifically, if no such speech is detected ofinquiring of the donor's age, then the AAO may be presumed to exist.However, after the agent is provided the whisper, detecting these samekeywords for the donor's age inquiry can be deemed as a suitableresponse to the whisper.

The process flow shown in FIG. 6 is but one embodiment how the variousforms of AAI may be provided to the agent at various times and undervarious contexts. In other embodiments, only a whisper may be providedand no follow up analysis is performed to determine whether a suitableagent response was provided. For example, the AAO may be triggered by aquestion from the remote caller asking the agent about a returnpolicy—e.g., what is the time period in which a product purchased can bereturned. The SAS may provide a whisper to the agent indicating relevantinformation, e.g., “two months.” The SAS may not necessarily monitorwhether the agent actually provided the information to the remote party,but merely inform the agent of the time period.

Process Flows for Event Notifications

The process flow for event notifications describes how eventnotifications are processed in the ASM to realize the above definedservice flow. The logic defined in the AWC-ASM operates on each callindependently from other calls. The processing in the AWC-ASM involvesprocessing both call-related event notifications and speech-relatedevent notifications. Two separate figures are used to describe theprocessing for these. The first process flow, shown in FIG. 7,represents the process flow for processing call-related eventnotifications in the AWC-ASM. Recall that these event notificationsinform the AWC-ASM of the establishment and termination of a callbetween the call handler and the SAS (specifically, the SAM). Thecall-related event notifications are sent when the SAS is bridged onto(and removed from) the call between the agent and remote party.

Relative to processing the speech-related event notifications, theprocessing of call-related event notification is relativelystraightforward and similar, as each ASM (including the AWC-ASM)typically creates a separate call instance for each call (i.e., for eachcall leg bridged to the SAM). The call instance is a data structuredefined for the ASM maintaining data specific to a call. Whenestablishment of a call is reported, these ASM specific data structures(referred to herein as the “call instance” data structure) may begenerated. In one embodiment, the call instance comprises informationallowing identification of the call and includes identifiers associatedwith the various VoIP streams, to allow identification of which party isassociated with which VoIP stream. Other information, such as the timethe data structure was created may be included. The call instance maythen be modified or referenced when subsequent speech-related eventnotifications are received for that call. Then, when the call isreported as terminated via a subsequent call-related event notification,the call instance (or selected portions thereof) may be saved,processed, and/or erased as appropriate.

Turning to the process flow 700 of FIG. 7, the process begins withreceiving the event notification in operation 705. A test in operation710 determines whether the event notification indicates a callestablishment. Reference to a “call establishment” refers to creatingcall legs from the call handler to the SAM, which occurs typically whenthe call between the agent and remote party is created. Creating a callleg may reflect, for example, allocating a new identifier for a logicalvoice packet stream or establishing a virtual circuit of some form.There may be multiple voice channels or streams associated with a callleg.

If the event notification received is a call-related event notificationindicating establishment of a call leg, then the process proceeds tooperation 715 where a call instance is created in the AWC-ASM. This callinstance is associated with the call that was just reported as beinggenerated. The call instance can be associated with the call by using areference identifier, call number, or some other similar form of callidentifier. The creation of the call instance results in generating andinitializing a data structure stored in the memory of the AWC-ASM, andmay further include the audio stream identifiers of the agent and remoteparty. The call instance data structure is defined by the AWC-ASM and istypically unique relative to other call instance data structuresgenerated by other ASMs.

If the event notification is not a call-related event notificationindicating call establishment in operation 710, then the next test is todetermine whether the event notification is a call-related eventnotification that reports the termination of the call in operation 725.If so, then the process continues to operation 720 where any appropriatedata stored in the call instance is then saved (if desired) by writingit to a file (e.g., an agent compliance file). Saving the call instancedata retains the desired information of the audio context for laterreview. In this application, information about an agent failing torespond to a prompt of confirming a donor's age may be recorded foragent evaluation purposes. Each occurrence, including information abouta time, agent, context, etc. could be stored. This allows administratorsto review potential problems or issues with the agent conforming to aparticular policy. After appropriate call instance data has been saved,the call instance data structure can be terminated in operation 735. Theoperation then returns to wait for the next event notification messagein operation 705.

If the event notification is not a call-related event notification inoperation 725, then the process flow continues from operation 725 tooperation 730 that presumes the event notification is a speech-relatedevent notification. Operation 730 reflects the processing ofspeech-related event notifications in the AWC-ASM, which detailed inFIG. 8.

The call-related event notification process flow shown in FIG. 7 issomewhat generic for the different types of ASMs that can be defined ina SAS. Namely, regardless of the ASM's purpose, call instances in an ASMare usually created in response to receiving a call-related eventnotification indicating call establishment. Then, any data generatedduring the call may be reflected in the call instance and saved when thecall terminates. In many instances, there may not be any interveningspeech-related event notifications received during the call, so theremay not be any changes to the call instance during the call. Thus, acall instance may be generated and erased, without any speech-relatedevent notifications ever having been received. In the case of theAWC-ASM, this could reflect the possibility that a remote party wasinvolved in a dialog with an agent, and the SAS never detected anappropriate AAO during the call. For example, returning to the exampleinvolving a charitable donation, the called party may indicate that theyare not interested in making a donation, and consequently, the SAS didnot ascertain an appropriate AAO and thus, there is no need to providethe whisper to the agent.

A process flow is shown in FIG. 8 for handling the speech-related eventnotifications based on the application previously described in which avisual AAI and then an aural AAI is provided to the agent. The processflow is dependent on the particular context and the opportunity that isintended to be detected. Other context may detect a different situation(e.g., failure to confirm a telephone number or credit card number) andprovide a different procedure for providing the visual AAI.

The process 800 begins with the AWC-ASM receiving a speech related eventnotification in operation 805. The contents of the event notificationare analyzed and it is determined that a visual AAI is appropriate inoperation 810 to remind the agent of the need to confirm the donor isnot a minor. This reminder, which is the first of two AAI, is providedas a visual AAI in operation 815. Assuming the reminder is text based,the appropriate information is provided to the agent's computer using apop-up window. Other embodiments could use an icon. Next, a firstresponse timer is started in operation 820. This timer determines if theagent has reacted properly to the first visual AAI within the timeperiod. This could occur by monitoring the speech of the agent. If so,these procedures would also be defined in the AWC-ASM. For example, ifanother speech-related event notification is received indicating theagent asked to confirm the remote party's age or whether they are aminor, then that could constitute an appropriate response in operation830.

If an appropriate response is detected in operation 830, then the flowloops back to operation 805 to process additional event notifications.Otherwise, a test determines if the first response timer expires inoperation 825. If not, then the process loops back to operation 830.

If the first response timer expires in operation 825 without havingreceived a suitable response from the agent, a second reminder prompt isprovided to the agent. In this example, it will be in a different formfrom the first prompt, which is an aural AAI, i.e., a whisper inoperation 840. A second response timer is started in operation 845.

If an appropriate response to the whisper is detected in operation 850,the process loops back to operation 805 to continue monitoringspeech-related event notifications. There may be other contexts whichare detected. Otherwise, if an appropriate agent response is notreceived, then another test determines if the second response timerexpires in operation 855. If not, the process loops back to operation850 in order to continue checking for a suitable response. Otherwise,the process proceeds to operation 860 where the second respond timer isstopped, and an agent non-compliance condition is recorded in the callinstance data structure in operation 865.

Additional actions could be taken if the agent fails to respond afterthe second AAI, such as notifying a supervisor, providing a third AAI tothe agent in a non-verbal aural form (e.g., a loud beep or warningtone). The AWC-ASM could further adjust the volume in the whisper bridgefor the third AAI to ensure that the agent does not ignore subsequentwarning.

Simplified AWC-ASM Embodiment

The above process flow of the AWC-ASM provided two types of reminders toan agent, and further monitored whether the agent respondedappropriately to each reminder. In other embodiments, the process flowof the AWC-ASM may simply determine that a whisper is to be provided,and does not monitor the agent's response, nor does the AWC-ASM providea first and a second reminder.

An example of an alternative process flow is shown in FIG. 9. Thisprocess flow checks for three distinct contexts for which threedifferent whispers are provided to the agent. In each case, the whisperis provided without any analysis of whether the agent responded in acertain way. In other embodiments, some contexts could warrant analysisand further action, while others do not.

The first context is to determine whether at the end of a call, theagent has asked the remote party to partake in a survey. If not, thenthe agent is provided a whisper to “Ask about survey” or simply“Survey.” The second context involves providing a reminder to the agentfor customers about a current promotion involving free shipping. Thewhisper may simply indicate “Free Shipping.” This reminds the agent toinform the potential customer about free shipping on orders above acertain amount. The third context is associated with a temporary issuein which orders were fulfilled incorrectly. Thus, customers complainingabout an incorrect shipment should be given special treatment, which mayrequire placing the caller on hold while the agent consults with asupervisor or bridging on a supervisor. In this case, the whisper maysimply be “Ask Supervisor.”

Turning to FIG. 9, the process 900 involves receiving a speech-relatedevent notification in operation 905. In this example, three specificAAOs for the three contexts are identified, and each one will beassociated with a particular set of keywords. The vocabulary of thekeywords that may be detected for a particular context obviously dependson that context that is designed to be detected. Because a variety ofwords may be used to detect the context, the speech-related eventnotifications could report the particular keywords detected or simplyidentify which context was detected.

The first context involving a survey will involve detecting keywordsindicative of the call being completed. For example, one keyword phrasemay be “anything else I can help you.” For purposes of reference, thisis referred to as the “survey” context. The second context involves apromotion involving free shipping, and this may involve detectingkeywords, such as “promotion”, “special offer”, or “limited time.” Thisis referred to herein as the “free shipping” context. The third contextmay involve detecting another set of keywords such as “mistake”,“order”, “received” “wrong item.” This is referred to herein as the“shipping mistake” context.

A first test determines if any of the keywords indicated in thespeech-related event notification are associated with the survey contextin operation 910. If so, then the process flow continues to operation915 where the AWC-ASM causes the announcement system to provide the “Askabout survey” whisper. If the speech-related event notification does notindicate detection of the survey context, then the next test inoperation 920 determines whether any of the detected keywords pertain tothe free shipping context. If so, then the process flow continues tooperation 925 where the AWC-ASM causes the announcement system toprovide the “free shipping” whisper.

If the speech-related event notification does not indicate the freeshipping context, then the detected keywords must pertain to theshipping mistake context in operation 930 and the AWC-ASM causes theannouncement system to provide the “ask supervisor” whisper in operation935.

Finally, if the speech-related event notification is none of these, thena suitable error process is invoked in operation 940. Presumably, theAWC-ASM is configured to process any of the possible speech-relatedevent notifications that it is expected to receive, but the errorprocess allows processing of an unexpected speech-related eventnotification, which may be due to, e.g., an error by the event handlerincorrectly forwarding the event notification.

Once the whisper is provided in each of the contexts, the process loopsback to operation 905 for processing any subsequent receivedspeech-related event notifications. For example, it is possible that allthree contexts could be encountered during a given call.

As can be seen, if additional contexts are defined, then additionaltests may be added to determine the appropriate context with the resultof providing the appropriate whisper for that context. The process maycontinuously loop to examine speech-related contexts as they areprovided by the event handler.

In other embodiments, the process may not loop. For example, the processmay only detect whether the survey context has occurred, and this mayresult in only one whisper being provided to the agent at the end of thecall. After the whisper is provided, the process may end, and no furtherwhispers are provided. It is also possible, that three separate ASMscould be defined, one which processes one of the three contextsdescribed above. Other variations are possible as to how the ASMs couldbe structured for handling various contexts in a call.

Coaching Using the Whisper Conference Bridge

The above embodiments relied upon the provision of a pre-recorded ormachine generated whisper to the agent. These whispers could be verbalor non-verbal. Further, these could originate from a separate system orone that is integrated into the SAS. In other embodiments, both couldexist, and used for providing different whispers. That is, the AWC-ASMmay control a machine generated whisper and a recorded announcement.These could be provided by a combination of integrated and distinctcapabilities relative to the SAS.

In another embodiment, the whisper could be provided by a human, whichreflects the embodiment of bridging on a supervisor or coaching mentoronto the call. This involves the use of another form of whisper bridge,the whisper conference bridge. The whisper conference bridge allows thecoach the ability to provide audio to the agent. Obviously, the“whisper” in this case is not prerecorded, nor necessarily limited toshort phrases. However, unlike the announcement system, the coach doesneeds the ability to hear the call. This requires a different whisperbridge than those discussed earlier, since no audio of the call wasprovided to the announcement system. Recall that the announcement systemrelied upon a command from the SAS as to what announcement to provide tothe agent. In this case, the SAS does not indicate to the coach whatwhisper should be stated to the agent. However, the SAS may provide anindication of the context to the coach. This could be in the form of awhisper to the coach at the beginning of bridging on the coach or via avisual message to the coach's computer.

One embodiment of a whisper conference bridge is shown in FIG. 10A. Thewhisper conference bridge 1000 has four ports. One port is for theremote party (and involves an incoming and outgoing voice channel), oneport is for the agent (and also involves an incoming and outgoing voicechannel), another port is for the coach (and also involves an incomingand outgoing voice channel), and the last port is for the SAS (andinvolves two outgoing voice channels).

The coach is required to hear the audio from the remote party andprovide audio to the agent. Thus, the audio 1005 from the coach isprovided to the 2^(nd) in-1C where is it provided only to the agent, butnot to the remote party. Thus, the coach can provide guidance to theagent without the remote party hearing what is being said. Further, thecoach receives audio 1010 from both the agent and the remote party, ascan be traced via 1S, 3S, and 2C for audio from the remote party, andvia 4S and 2C for audio from the agent. The SAS continues to receiveaudio 1015 from the remote party on a distinct and separate voicechannel from audio 1020 from the agent.

The SAS can invoke the whisper conference bridge in the call handler bysending a signaling message over a signaling link from the AWC-ASM tothe call handler specifying the address of the coach to be added to thewhisper conference bridge.

In some embodiments, the AWC-ASM may cause a whisper to be firstprovided to the agent followed by a bridging on a supervisor or coach.For example, building upon the aforementioned illustration involving ashipping mistake context, the SAS could provide the agent with a “asksupervisor” whisper, followed by bridging on the agent's supervisor witha whisper conference bridge. A further tone could be provided when thesupervisor is connected. In this manner, the agent is aware of thebridging on of the supervisor.

For this embodiment, a slightly different whisper bridge architecturemay be required. This is shown in FIG. 10B, which combines aspects ofFIG. 5 and FIG. 10A. In this embodiment, the whisper bridge 1001includes an audio channel 1022 from the SAS similar to that shown inFIG. 5. This allows the SAS to provide the whisper to the agent. Inaddition, the other components, such as 3S, 2C, 1C, and 4S from FIG. 10Aallow the agent to hear the supervisor/coach, and allow thesupervisor/coach to hear the call on channel 1010, but the remote partydoes not hear the supervisor/coach. The coach can provide audio onchannel 1005, but only to the agent, not to the remote party. Similar toFIG. 10A, in FIG. 10B the SAS still receives audio from the remote partyon channel 1015 and the agent on channel 1020,

In one embodiment, the bridge shown in FIG. 5 may be initially used toallow the SAS to provide the whisper, and once the AWC-ASM then invokesthe whisper conference bridge in the call handler, the bridge structuremay be modified to that shown in FIG. 10B. In other embodiments, thebridge structure in FIG. 10B may be initially used, and the AWC-ASMmerely instructs the call handler to connect the indicatedsupervisor/coach to the call. Recall that in various embodiments thatthe bridge may be incorporated into the call handler or located in anexternal system. Any of these approaches incorporates the principles andconcepts disclosed herein for allowing the agent to hear verbal coachingfrom a supervisor without the remote party hearing.

Other Embodiments

As shown in FIG. 1, the AWC-ASM controls the provision of the whisper tothe agent. More specifically, the AWC-ASM provides the appropriatesignaling to the announcement system causing the announcement systemproviding the audio to the whisper bridge. The signaling provided by theAWC-ASM can control various aspects in addition to selecting the audiofile to be played. A variety of signaling protocols and/or formats canbe used for the signaling information.

In one embodiment, the AWC-ASM may indicate information that causes anaudio or visual AAI to be provided to the agent. Thus, the announcementsystem could provide visual in addition to aural information. TheAWC-ASM may indicate information specifying the form (e.g., visual oraural) and/or contents. In some embodiments, the announcement system mayhave an integrated text-to-speech capability. Thus, the AWC-ASM couldindicate the AAI content and the form to be provided, e.g., “PLAY (“AskSupervisor”, audio)” for providing a whisper indicating “Ask Supervisor”or “DISPLAY (“Ask Supervisor”, text_box)” for providing a pop-up displaywindow indicating the text “Ask Supervisor.” In other embodiments, theinformation could indicate a filename, which by its structure defineswhether the information is visual or audio in nature, such as “PROVIDE(file #53)” where file #53 is an WAV file format.

In other embodiments, the AWC-ASM may also provide parameters in thesignaling that indicate a speed of playback for audio files ortext-to-speech generated whispers. The speed could be indicated as afactor or percentage from a normal speed. This causes the whisper tohave a shorter duration, though it cannot be so fast so as to beunintelligible to the agent.

In other embodiments, the AWC-ASM may also include a volume indicatorassociated with the providing a whisper. This again could be indicatedas a relative volume level or an absolute volume control.

In other embodiments, the AWC-ASM may provide the aural and visual AAIto the agent simultaneously. For example, a first reminder to the agentmay be provided via text, and if no agent response is detected, a secondreminder may be provided that provides a warning tone along with anothertext reminder simultaneously or contemporaneously (e.g., such that theagent perceives these two forms of AAI are closely related to eachother). This can function to provide an indication to the agent toreview their display screen should the agent not be paying attention tothe screen. No doubt those skilled in the art will be able to utilizethe concepts and technologies disclosed herein to construct othervariations to fulfill similar service capabilities.

Exemplary Computer Processing Device

FIG. 11 is an exemplary schematic diagram of a computer processingsystem that may be used in embodiments to practice the technologiesdisclosed herein. In general, the term “computer processing system” maybe exemplified by, for example, but without limitation: a personalcomputer, server, desktop computer, tablets, smart phones, notebooks,laptops, distributed systems, servers, blades, gateways, switches, andthe like, as well as any combination of devices or entities adapted toperform the functions described herein.

The system 1100 may apply to the system executing any of the abovemodules, including the call handler 110, speech analytics module 120,the event handler module 150, and/or the AWC-ASM module 165, althoughonly the AWC-ASM module is shown in FIG. 11. FIG. 11 could alsorepresent the system of the agent's computer, which displays the statusindications to the agent. Further, although FIG. 11 shows only theAWC-ASM module, other modules may be present in the system of FIG. 11,either by integrating their functions into a single module or asseparate modules in the system.

As shown in FIG. 11, the processing system 1100 may include one or moreprocessors 1101 that may communicate with other elements within theprocessing system 1100 via a bus 1105. The processor 1101 may beimplemented as one or more complex programmable logic devices (“CPLD”),microprocessor, integrated circuit (“IC”) based microprocessor, avon-Neumann architecture-based digital computer, multi-core processors,digital signal processors (“DSP”), system-on-a-chip (“SOC”),co-processing entities, application-specific integrated circuits(“ASIC”), field programmable gate arrays (“FPGA”), programmable logicarrays (“PLA”), hardware accelerators, other circuitry, or the like.

In one embodiment, the processing system 1100 may also include one ormore communications interfaces 1102 for communicating data via a datanetwork, such as a local network, with various external devices. Invarious embodiments, communication may be via wired, optical, orwireless networks (or a combination thereof). The communication may usea variety of data transmission protocols, such as fiber distributed datainterface (FDDI), Ethernet, asynchronous transfer mode (“ATM”), or framerelay.

The input/output controller 1103 may also communicate with one or moreinput devices or peripherals using an interface 1104 such as, but notlimited to: a keyboard, a mouse, a touch screen/display input,microphone, pointing device, etc. The input/output controller 1103 mayalso communicate with output devices or peripherals, such as displays,printers, speakers, headsets, banner displays, etc. These may be used,in part, to receive administrator input, such as for configuring thesystem's operation.

The processor 1101 may be configured to execute instructions stored involatile memory 1106, non-volatile memory 1107, or other forms ofcomputer readable storage media accessible to the processor 1101. Thevolatile memory may comprise various types of memory technologies,including, but not limited to: random access memory (“RAM”), dynamicrandom access memory (“DRAM”), static random access memory (“SRAM”), andother forms well known to those skilled in the art. The non-volatilememory may comprise various technologies, including, but not limited to:storage media such as hard disks, floppy disks, read only memory(“ROM”), programmable read only memory (“PROM”), electrically erasableread only memory (“EPROM”), flash memory, and other forms well known tothose skilled in the art.

The non-volatile memory 1107 may store various program code modules anddata, which also may be loaded into the volatile memory 1106 atexecution time (though not shown as such in FIG. 11). For example, thenon-volatile memory 1107 may store one or more modules, such as theAWC-ASM module 1109 that may implement and perform the above-mentionedprocess flows containing instructions for performing the process and/orfunctions associated with the technologies disclosed herein, as well asoperating system code 1108. The AWC-ASM module 1109 may also manage datasuch as the call instance data in the ASM data 1110 which may berecorded for in various calls. The data and/or modules in thenon-volatile memory may be copied in the volatile memory 1106 at runtime. The volatile memory 1106 and/or non-volatile memory 1107 may beused to store other information including, but not limited to: records,applications, programs, scripts, source code, object code, byte code,compiled code, interpreted code, machine code, executable instructions,or the like. These may be executed or processed by, for example, theprocessor 1101 and may form a part of, or may interact with, the AWC-ASMmodule 1109.

The technologies described herein may be implemented in various ways,including as computer program products comprising memory storinginstructions causing a processor to perform the operations associatedwith the above technologies. The computer program product may comprise anon-transitory, tangible computer readable storage medium storingapplications, programs, program modules, scripts, source code, programcode, object code, byte code, compiled code, interpreted code, machinecode, executable instructions, and/or the like (also referred to hereinas executable instructions, instructions for execution, program code,and/or similar terms). The computer readable storage media includes allthe above tangible identified computer readable media (includingvolatile and non-volatile media), but does not encompass a transitory,propagating signal, photon-based storage media, nor does it encompass anon-tangible computer readable medium. Non-volatile computer readablestorage medium may specifically comprise: a floppy disk, flexible disk,hard disk, magnetic tape, compact disc read only memory (“CD-ROM”),compact disc compact disc-rewritable (“CD-RW”), digital versatile disc(“DVD”), Blu-Ray™ disc (“BD”), any other non-transitory optical medium,and/or the like. Non-volatile computer readable storage medium may alsocomprise read-only memory (“ROM”), programmable read-only memory(“PROM”), erasable programmable read-only memory (“EPROM”), electricallyerasable programmable read-only memory (“EEPROM”), flash memory, and/orother technologies known to those skilled in the art.

The examples for illustrating the concepts and the technologies hereinhave focused on agents in a contact center, but could be easily appliedto other types of applications. Further, those skilled in the art willrecognize that in light of this disclosure, many alternative embodimentsand applications could be designed taking into account the concepts andtechnologies disclosed herein.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method for providing a whisper to anagent using a whisper bridge, comprising: establishing a first call legbetween the whisper bridge and a remote party; establishing a secondcall leg between the whisper bridge and the agent; establishing a thirdcall leg between the whisper bridge and a speech analytics system(“SAS”), wherein the SAS comprises an Agent Whisper Control ApplicationSpecific Module (“AWC-ASM”) comprising a processor, and wherein thethird call leg comprises a first voice channel and a second voicechannel conveying speech from the agent and remote party respectively;monitoring speech of the third call leg by the SAS; detecting a keywordin the speech of the third call leg; providing a speech-related eventnotification to the AWC-ASM associated with the keyword detected in thespeech, the speech-related event notification comprising a callidentifier identifying the third call leg and an identifier indicatingone of the agent or the remote party as originating the keyword; andcausing the whisper to be provided to the agent, wherein the whisperbridge prevents the remote party from hearing the whisper.
 2. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: providing a message from the AWC-ASM toan announcement system in response to receiving the speech-related eventnotification, the message identifying a pre-recorded audio file that isto be played to the agent as the whisper.
 3. The method of claim 1,wherein causing the whisper to be provided to the agent comprisescausing a text-to-speech generator in the SAS to generate the whisper.4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: providing visualinformation to a computer used by the agent in response to detecting thekeyword in the speech by the SAS.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein thewhisper comprises a non-verbal sound.
 6. The method of claim 1, whereinthe whisper bridge comprises a whisper conference bridge and the methodfurther comprises: causing another person to be bridged onto the whisperconference bridge, wherein audio from the another person is provided toa phone device used by the agent and the audio from the another personis not heard by the remote party.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein thewhisper bridge is configured to process Voice over IP (“VoIP”) audiodata and comprises structure partly located in a call handler and in anagent's computer.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein causing the whisperto be provided to the agent comprises providing the whisper to theagent's computer comprising a soft-phone used by the agent.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: ascertaining one of a pluralityof whispers that the AWC-ASM is configured to provide based on receivingone of a plurality of speech-related event notifications.
 10. A systemfor providing a whisper to an agent in a contact center, comprising: aspeech analytics system (“SAS”) configured to process a first call leg,wherein the first call leg conveys audio of a call involving the agentand a remote party, the SAS configured to generate a message identifyingan audio informational message to be provided to the agent; a whisperbridge configured to bridge the first call leg with the SAS, a secondcall leg with the remote party, a third call leg with the agent, and afourth call leg, wherein the audio of the fourth call leg is notprovided to the second call leg of the remote party; and an announcementcomponent configured to receive the message from the SAS and inresponse, provide the audio informational message to the whisper bridgeon the fourth call leg, wherein the audio informational message isprovided to the third call leg with the agent but not to the second callleg with the remote party.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein theannouncement component comprises a text-to-speech generator forgenerating the audio information message in response to receiving themessage.
 12. The system of claim 10, wherein the first call leg with theSAS comprises a first audio channel conveying speech from the remoteparty and a second audio channel conveying speech from the agent. 13.The system of claim 10, wherein the SAS comprises a first processorconfigured to: detect a keyword in the audio of the call, and provide aspeech-related event notification reflecting detection of the keyword;and wherein the SAS comprises a second processor configured to: receivethe speech-related event notification reflecting detection of thekeyword, and generate the message to the announcement component inresponse to receiving the speech-related event notification.
 14. Thesystem of claim 13, wherein audio of the second call leg and the thirdcall leg is not provided to the announcement component on the fourthcall leg.
 15. The system of claim 13, wherein the whisper bridge isdistributed between a call handler and a computer used by the agent.